The History of the Olympic Games - Ancient & Modern

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Created on Sunday, August 27, 2000
Updated August 20, 2014
These pages are dedicated to K & A.

Introduction

The modern Olympic Games are always hosted by a city - not by a country.

The ancient Olympic Games were always hosted by the Elians at the sanctuary of Zeus in Olympia.

The first modern Olympic Games were hosted by Athens (Greece) in 1896.

The first ancient Olympic Games started sometime between 1100 - 780 BCE, not in 776 BCE. However all records were lost in ancient times -- even the ancient Greeks didn't know when they actually started.
The first recorded victor in the ancient Olympic Games was designated by Hippias of Elis to be the first year of the the 1st Olympiad, calculated by modern historians to be the year 776 BCE.

The most recent celebration of the modern summer Olympic Games was hosted by London (England / Great Britain / United Kingdom) in 2012.

The most recent celebration of the winter Olympic Games was hosted by Sochi (Russia) in 2014.

The next celebration of the modern summer Olympic Games will be hosted by Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) in 2016.

The next celebration of the winter Olympic Games will be hosted by in PyeongChang (South Korea) in 2018.

The 2020 summer Olympic Games will be hosted by Tokyo (Japan). The decision was made by the International Olympic Committee at the 125th IOC session held on September 7, 2013 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The 2022 winter Olympic Games will be hosted by a city to be selected at a meeting of the IOC on July 31, 2015. There are three cities in the final selection phase of the bidding process: Oslo (Norway), Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Beijing (China).

There are several cities worldwide that will apply to host the 2024 summer Olympic Games.

Ancient Olympic Games Host Cities

Olympia

Rome

With only one exception, the ancient Olympic Games were always in the same place -- OLYMPIA -- a sacred precinct in the western part of the Peloponnese peninsula in southern Greece. OLYMPIA itself was not a town, but a religious site. Today the ancient site is still its own tiny entity and nearby - within walking distance - there is a small town of "Olympia" with a population of under 1,200 people, with hotels, a museum, restaurants, etc. The nearby town of ELIS is within the region known as ELIS. A bit confusing, but think of it this way - this region would be similar to a "county" in any one of the states in the USA, with the town having the same name. The town of Elis is in the region of Elis. (So compare it to the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania which is also the COUNTY of Philadelphia, one of 67 counties in the state of Pennsylvania. Whereas Pittsburgh is only one part of ALLEGHENY COUNTY in western Pennsylvania).

The map above shows all of Greece with the Peloponnese in the lower part in yellow. The orange island at the bottom is Crete. The pink islands on the right are all part of Greece and this is where so many tourists travel today when taking cruises to the Greek Islands. The gray area at right is Turkey. In the ancient era this gray region was part of Greece and under their influence and control. Troy was there. Then the Romans conquered the Greeks and it was all part of the Roman Empire. When Rome collapsed this region was called the Byzantine Empire, and they controlled most of Greece. In 1453 this region was conquered by the Muslim Ottomans and became known as the Ottoman Empire who controlled Greece for over 450 years. The Ottoman Empire ended in 1922, following World War I, and this gray area at right became the nation of Turkey. To this day there remains tension between the Greeks at left and the Turks at right.

The Olympic Games in the ancient era took place in the Peloponnese (yellow) and attracted Greeks from the entire Greek world - and they all walked to Olympia. The modern Olympic Games took place in Athens (red area) in 1896, 1906 and 2004.
Istanbul, Turkey was one of the three finalist cities bidding to host the Olympic Games of 2020 butt Tokyo (Japan) was selected to be the host city.

In this map you can see where OLYMPIA is located
in the Peloppenese peninsula, so click on this image
to see the details on this map.

The Olympic Games were a religious event, a FESTIVAL that honored the Greek God ZEUS. The ancient Olympic Games were hosted by the ELIANS who were the guardians of the religious sanctuary to Zeus. They tried -- and succeeded for a few hundred years -- to be neutral, that is, not allied to other Greek city-states, similar to modern day Switzerland. But in the fifth century BCE (480 BCE) they allied themselves with Sparta and warred against their neighbors. The Elians lost control of the sanctuary to the Spartans, then to other Greek city-states, then finally to the conquering Romans. In 80 BCE the Roman general Sulla moved the Olympic Games to Rome and only a single race for boys was held at Olympia, the stade race. But then Sulla died and the next Olympic Games returned to Olympia in 76 BCE. The Games stayed in Olympia until they were banished along with all other "pagan" festivals by Roman Emperor Theodosius I in 393 CE.

The Calender known as the OLYMPIAD

The ancient Olympic Games and the modern Olympic Games are QUADRENNIAL events, meaning they are held every four years. This four year period of time is known as an OLYMPIAD. To the ancient Greeks it (an OLYMPIAD) was their calender, a way of designating time. However, this calender was not used by every Greek city-state and there is great difficulty in studying ancient history because of the calendar and modern attempts to "date" things. There was no accurate dating system in the ancient era and every civilization used a different calender system. There were calenders for the Babylonians, Hebrews, Greeks, Romans and many others. The one thing they all had in common was that they were conquered by the Romans. As the Roman empire grew, there was a need for a more common system. Julius Caesar created the Julian calender in 46 BCE.

Our modern calender is based upon revisions to the ancient Roman Julian calender that were made and instituted by the Catholic Church in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. This revised calender is known as the Gregorian Calender. Using this revised calender from 1582 becomes an issue when trying to date the ancient Greek Olympiads from 776 BCE, which was year "one" of the 1st Olympiad.

To make it very simple to understand -- your birthdate this year would not have been the same date in ancient Greek times.

Just as in ancient Greece, the modern Olympic Games are held every four years at the beginning of the Olympiad. The 1st modern Olympiad began in 1896 when Pierre de Coubertin revived the Olympic Games and they were held in Athens. Therefore, these Games are referred to as The Games of the First Modern Olympiad. More specifically, the Games were held in "year one" of the "first modern Olympiad."

During the early years of the Modern Olympic Movement there was a disagreement over who should host the Olympic Games. The Greek Government wanted the Games in Athens permanently while Pierre de Coubertin, the French "founder" of the Modern Olympic Games, wanted the Games to rotate around the world to major sporting cities. So the Olympic Games of the second Olympiad were held in Paris, France and the Olympic Games of the third Olympiad were in St. Louis, Missouri, USA. The Greeks went ahead and scheduled their own Olympic Games in 1906, a tenth anniversary celebration of the 1896 Games. At that time these Games were considered "official," in spite of the calender - not being a QUADRENNIAL event. From an historical perspective - the 1906 Olympic Games must always be included in Olympic record keeping. They happened -- they cannot be ignored. However, they are not called the Games of the fourth Olympiad -- because the Games of the Fourth Olympiad were held in 1908 in London, England. Is this confusing you? Don't worry -- it was confusing to everyone back then too. The Greek government did not hold any future Olympic celebrations because it was to expensive. The modern Games have continued to be hosted in cities around the world. The Greeks tried to get the 1996 Games because it was the centennial (100th birthday) of the Olympic Games, but the Games were hosted in Atlanta (USA). However the next Olympic Games -- in 2004 -- were held in Athens, Greece.

From Ancient Olympic Games to Modern Olympic Games

The ancient Greeks celebrated their Olympic Games without interruption for over 1,000 years, from 776 BCE to 261 CE. Quite remarkable! After the year 261 CE it is unknown what happened to the Games because all the records have been lost. There are no records in existing ancient "victor lists." Actually -- they abruptly end, probably because there was an invasion by the Heruli, a barbarian tribe from the coast of what is now southern Russia. Invading in a fleet of 500 ships they devastated Byzantium and Greece before the Romans forced them to retreat. The Elians erected defensive walls with towers around the Olympic sanctuary, but we had no evidence that any celebrations were held until the 1990's.

There must have been something happening at Olympia. It must have remained a religious site to the Greek god Zeus. We know this because in the 1990's a bronze plaque was found that records the victors of boy's events in the Olympic Games of 381 CE and 385 CE. Then in 391 CE the Roman emperor Theodosius I, accepted the new religion known as Christianity to be the official state religion of Rome, and he outlawed all pagan religious festivals throughout the Roman Empire. Allow me to repeat that: Theodosius, a Roman Emperor, outlawed both the ancient Greek Gods and his own Roman Gods because he accepted the new religion of Christianity for his empire.

It is frequently written that the last Games held at Olympia were in 393 CE, but there is no evidence to support this. It is known that in 393 CE the Roman army was sent to Olympia to destroy the religious site in order to prevent the Greeks from having their pagan festivals. By 395 CE it is known that the great statue of Zeus, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World, had been removed to a Roman palace in Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Empire, where is was destroyed in a fire in 462 CE. But evidence has been found that there might have been later Olympic Games until 425 CE. In 426 CE Theodosius II, grandson of Theodosius I, issued an edict to destroy all pagan temples. Such edicts by Roman emperors indicates that the Greeks may have continued some festivals through the years, but there is no historical evidence about the Olympic Games...no written records or victor lists, no descriptions in ancient Roman written books, no reliefs or carvings on stones or bronze markers.

The temple of Zeus at Olympia was burned to the ground. Rome itself had already been sacked by Allaric and the Visigoths in 410 CE. The "Dark Ages" had begun. Keep in mind that all these dates have been calculated by historians who have tried to use mathematics to "date" events. To study this problem of dating ancient events you would need to read more about the history of calenders.

Almost 1500 years had passed when Pierre de Coubertin, of France, organized a revival of the ancient Olympic Games and the first celebration was held in Athens, Greece in 1896. In the first 50 years of the Modern Games they have been cancelled three times. In 1916 the Games were scheduled to be in Berlin (Germany) but were cancelled due to World War I. In both 1940 and 1944 the Olympic Games were cancelled due to World War II. They were supposed to be hosted by Tokyo (Japan) and when the Japanese cancelled the Games an alternate city was chosen - Helsinki (Finland). But in 1939 the Soviet Union invaded Finland and for the second time the Olympic Games were cancelled.

In 1980 the United States led a boycott of the Moscow Olympics and in 1984 the Soviets retaliated and led a boycott of the Los Angeles Olympics.

Wars, politics, corruption -- these are forces that affect the modern Olympic Games as much as they affected the ancient Olympic Games. It affects the Host of the Games and it affects the calender. Although an Olympiad cannot be cancelled because it is a period of time, the Games of an Olympiad can be cancelled. Below is a list of the host cities of the Ancient and Modern Olympic Games with Arabic numbers being used as well as Roman numerals (21st Olympiad as well as XXI Olympiad).

The proper way to refer to any Olympic Games celebration is to use the Roman numeral system such as:
The Olympic Games of the IV Olympiad and to say it as "The Olympic Games of the fourth Olympiad." The Olympiad only refers to the summer Olympic Games as the winter Games were an afterthought and are not numbered, only dated.